Our game is freeze-out only because that's what my players want. In a recent survey, 1/3 of my players say they will not play with re-buys, and another 20+% prefer no re-buys. I still find that surprising and would like to offer re-buys, probably limited to 1, only available until the tournament entry cut-off, and I like Zombie's idea of not requiring that a person be felted, but they can re-buy and get a fresh stack but must give up their remaining chips. I'm not sure how that would play out, but I think there might be some players who would re-buy because it would increase their chip stack. I'm in favor of getting that money in the prize pool.
I've seen re-buys handled several ways. The first game I played in with re-buys, each player was given a re-buy or add-on chip. If they hadn't re-bought prior to the break after round 5, they could turn it in and do an add-on. Sometimes the re-buy or add-on was the same price as the buy-in, and sometimes it was less. That was not a league though. The host had someone at each table who could handle giving re-buyers another chip stack. The host did the re-buys or add-ons during the break.
In another game, also not a league, one person handled the money while another handled giving out chips. The clock was stopped for re-buys. That was an unlimited re-buy game and I saw players buying in when they were only getting 10 BB. That happened more than once when it got down to 4 and they were paying 3. I saw a player re-buy one night when the number of re-buys he already had would mean even if he finished first, he would still lose money. He still managed to finish 3rd, so in that sense, his re-buy was justified, though completely crazy IMO. I'd limit re-buys to a certain point in the game -- not past the point where someone could buy-in.
Those who do run leagues with re-buys, I bet you could come up with a method to get others to help. I used table captains/dealers to help with a lot of things. When ours was a league, we didn't do re-buys. I also had 3-4 people who could follow easy procedures and do check-ins. I would have trusted my table captains to handle re-buys and mark them accurately. It's hard to be the only person who can handle anything. Tournament director duties are challenging sometimes, and not so much other times. Learning to delegate what can be delegated will make your life easier. Trust me, you are not the only person in your group that can handle stuff accurately. Doing too much, you are actually more likely to make a critical mistake then relying on a team of people where there are checks and balances. One thing you can do is send out notices afterward and give players a chance to correct things, especially when they have an incentive for things to be accurate. My players learned that I'll send a group email to those who were there. If one person says "I didn't get credit for X," I would respond to everyone to verify that. I never had anyone try to cheat, and through 3 years of leagues only twice had someone make corrections. None of us have a perfect memory and it's not that hard to record something wrong.
